A Second Chance
by maureenz33
Summary: Fred returns to Wolfram and Hart after the battle with no memory of what happened over the last several months while Illyria inhabited her body. The story contains spoilers up to the end of the series. Fred/Wesley


Rating: There is some language in the story, but not much else.

Disclaimer: I do not own Angel or The Little Princess. If I did Fred and Wesley would have gotten a LOT more than one episode together. Curse you Joss Whedon.

Spoilers: This series contains spoilers up the the finale of the show.

Author's Note: This is something I wrote after seeing the series finale of Angel a little over a year ago. Please review. Constructive criticism is whelcomed, I can't get better if you don't tell me what I am doing wrong.

* * *

It was when Angel felt the most lost that Fred walked into his office. He looked up once, thinking nothing of it, but a moment later he did a double take. Angel sighed. "Illyria, could you not-" he started.

"Who's Illyria?" she asked.

"This isn't funny," Angel said looking up, his face tense.

"I'm not laughing," she told him. "Why does everyone keep calling me that?"

"Fred?" he asked almost disbelievingly. He almost couldn't believe that something this good was happening to him after the year that he's had.

"Where is everyone?" she asked looking around. "Out on a job I imagine."

Angel didn't speak for a moment then sat down on his desk that he had been standing in front of. "You don't remember, do you?" he asked her.

"Remember what?" Fred asked.

"The circle."

Fred wracked her brain for that name, but came up with nothing. "Should I remember this?"

"It's better if you don't," Angel told her turning his face away from her, looking outside at the ground below.

"Why?" she questioned. She didn't want Angel to play games with her; she just wanted to know the truth.

Before Angel was able to answer, the door opened and Spike entered the room. "You asked before where everyone was. This is everyone now."

Fred staggered back to a couch behind her and looked at the ground for a moment processing this. For some reason she didn't understand, and then it clicked. "Wesley?" she asked looking at the two men in front of her.

There silence was almost a confirmation, when Spike added "Sorry, love." Fred's eyes filled with tears. She looked to Angel, and he nodded. That was when she let out a small sob.

It took her a moment to regain some semblance of composure when she asked about the others. "Gunn? Knox? Lorne?" She was grabbing on to every last fiber of hope she could.

"Gunn was badly wounded by a vampire during the battle. We don't know if he was turned or not. We haven't seen him since," Angel tried to tell Fred as delicately as possible. It was almost as if he were trying to tell a young child bad news.

"Knox was the one who brought the sarcophagus to the lab and allowed Illyria to posses you. It turned out he was working for the other side the whole time," answered Spike with less tact than Angel.

There was silence for several moments, when Fred asked, "What about Lorne? What happened to Lorne?"

"He's fine as far as we know. He decided to rebuild Caritas in Las Vagas," Angel answered.

Fred remained silent for several minutes processing what she learned while the two men on the opposite side of the room silently tried to figure out how best to deal with the situation.

While the debate between Angel and Spike raged Harmony knocked at the door. "Boss, your 1 o'clock is here," she shouted.

This interruption broke Fred's train of thought and she quickly gathered herself and left the room telling them that she would "be back later."

Originally Fred had planned on going back to her apartment, but then she realized that she probably didn't have one anymore. A being like Illyria, who apparently possessed her, wouldn't need to live in an apartment. She would probably live in the lab. She did live in the lab. _How did I know that?_ She asked herself, as she changed directions to walk down to the science wing. _I lived there for a while. They tried to see how powerful I was._ It felt like she was trying to remember a dream, but most of it right now was too fuzzy to be seen.

With her eyes already bloodshot and new tears filling them, Fred took a wrong turn. The next time she looked up she was standing outside the Mystical Relics Wing. She eyed the doorknob to the room. _Don't do this to yourself. Don't do it._ She told herself over and over again, but her hand still reached for the knob, her fingers still grasped it and her wrist still turned.

The room looked relatively the same. All the objects in the room seemed not to have moved since the last time she had seen them, but everything seemed to have a very thing layer of dust lying over top of it. The made the emptiness that was clawing its way into her stomach hit her even harder. At this point Fred should have done the wise thing, which was to turn back and forget she saw the room in this shape, but when had Fred ever been known to take the easy way out?

She walked slowly to the center of the room taking one of the seven books on the desk. "A Little Princess" she whispered. Her eyes passed so quickly from page to page until she found the right spot to begin. The spot that he read. Then she began reading as if she were studying every word and how it was crafted with all the others to make one single flowing sentence. She heard his voice the entire time. He narrated the story for her. What she would give to actually hear his voice again. Then it hit her; she was hearing his voice.

Fred looked up from the book and saw Wesley standing at the edge of the room murmuring something to himself that sounded like an ancient dead language. Her jaw dropped slightly and was not brought back to reality until the book that she was holding slid out of her hands and onto the floor.

Wesley's eyes snapped from the book in front of him to Fred. His eyes widened momentarily, but in the matter of a few seconds they reverted back to his book. He internally smacked himself for having that glimmer of hope. "I thought you said you were leaving last week," Wesley commented nonchalantly.

"What?" Fred asked now genuinely confused.

"Last week you told me that you were leaving for good. What changed your mind?" he asked, the emotions that he was trying to hide now became more obvious.

"Nothing," Fred answered, her eyes still wide with the amazement of gaining back a love that she thought was lost. "I mean she didn't change her mind. She's gone." Fred added a tiny smile. Wesley didn't seem to notice.

"You wouldn't be sitting there if Illyria had gone."

"I'm not Illyria," she urged, forgetting for the moment the joy of getting Wesley back.

"Then who are you?" he asked darkly.

"Winifred Burkle," she said raising her voice. Why couldn't he tell the difference between her and some monster?

"She's dead." His face was so emotionless that Fred had to wonder how long she had been gone for.

"Then who am I if I'm not Fred?" she questioned.

"You tell me." The coldness of his voice broke her heart.

"I've already given you the right answer."

"Yet I still don't believe you." Wesley continued to look at her for a moment and then turned back to the book he had been studying. "Please leave if you aren't willing to tell me the truth."

She looked at him slightly shocked and disgusted for a moment and then realized what he must have gone through for the past couple of months. Illyria looked like Fred, but she wasn't her. Who's to say another demon couldn't do the same thing?

Fred was heading towards the door when she turned back for a moment, as if to see if Wesley was still there. "I'm glad you're all right," she told him, and she turned back around.

Wesley paused for a moment and then asked, "What do you mean?"

"Angel said that you were d-" she couldn't get out the word even though the man was standing right in front of her. "Badly injured in the battle with The Circle. I was just saying that I'm glad your all right."

"I'm not all right," Wesley stopped.

"What?" Fred asked.

"I'm not all right. I was killed in that battle."

"But your-" she started.

"A ghost," he finished. "A substitute really until the real department head gets back from vacation."

"What will happen to you then?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Back to the fiery depths of hell I suppose. Bet a demon such as yourself would know all about that," he told her almost sneering. The tears that had disappeared a half-hour ago were now coming back to the surface. "Or maybe you're a shape shifter," he suggested to her now pacing in front of her, almost making a semi-circle.

"Or maybe I'm Fred Burkle!" She shouted back, the tears in her eyes spilling over. She was not going to let him do this to her.

"Stubborn, aren't we?" Wesley teased.

"If I weren't Fred then how would I know about this," she said holding up The Little Princess, "let alone what pages you read. How would I know about Figenbomb?" she challenged him.

"Illyria had her memories, you could also," Wesley dismissed.

"Yes but Illyria received my memories over a long period of time, and she didn't start to process them until almost a month later. By your calculations if I were someone else I shouldn't even know who Winifred Burkle is at the moment, let alone what I got all 7 times I took the SATs."

"You're a different demon, some assimilate faster than others."

"Yes, but not this fast." Neither of them spoke for a moment. "Why can't you believe that I'm back?"

"Because you can't be," Wesley told her. His hard outer shell was starting to break. "All the others were possible to resurrect because their soul was still intact. Fred's is not."

"How do you know?" she asked, now genuinely curious.

"I have my sources," he said trying to distance himself emotionally from the conversation and to gain back the composure he had lost recently.

"Wesley, I know you, you wouldn't give up that easily. Who told you this?"

"Illyria."

"And you don't see the faulty logic in that?" Fred asked him. "She's a demon, Wes. Demons lie, especially when the lies benefits them. She knew that you wouldn't try magic to get me back if you thought it was impossible, so she made you think that it was." Wesley said nothing. "She wasn't as good as you made her out to be."

"Leave … now," he told her stressing every word.

"Why?" Fred challenged him. "Why do I have to go? Is it because you know I'm right?" Again he said nothing. "You were wrong, admit it. You thought Illyria was good, misguided, but nonetheless good. She lied to you and you can't handle it!" Fred stared at him trying to calm down before she continued. "Accept the fact that I'm telling to truth. I, Fred Burkle, am back, and so are you Wesley Wyndam Pryce."

"Go away. Leave me please," he said to her again. This time he was almost pleading with her.

"Why?" Fred asked regaining some of her former anger. "Tell me Wesley, why can't I stay?" she folded her arms in front of her and stared at him waiting for a response. Wesley turned away from her, not showing her his weakness. Fred remembered the last time she said those words. "Oh God," Fred said much quieter.

Wesley closed his eyes for a moment trying to forget her words, but images of him holding her broken body in the last moments of her life kept flooding his mind.

Fred walked closer to him and placed her hand on his shoulder. Wesley turned his head slightly towards her. It seemed like Fred. Her looks, her mannerisms, right down to the way she walks, but how could she be back?

"I'm sorry…" she started. "I didn't mean…"

He looked back to her again. "I know, I know you didn't mean to." It was then that he realized that he didn't care if it wasn't her. If she wasn't, then it's a pretty darn good lie.


End file.
